1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer network search engines, and more particularly to search engines for performing online monitoring activities.
2. Related Art
Over the past several years, there has been an explosion of computers, and thus people, connected to the global Internet and the World-Wide Web (WWW). This increase of connectivity has allowed computer users to access various types of information, disseminate information, and be exposed to electronic commerce activities, all with a great degree of freedom. Electronic commerce includes large corporations, small businesses, individual entrepreneurs, organizations, and the like who offer their information, products, and/or services to people all over the world via the Internet.
The rise in the usage of the Internet, however, has also had a negative side. Given the Internet""s vastness and freedom, many unscrupulous individuals have taken the opportunity to profit by violating the intellectual property of others. For example, it has been estimated that billions of dollars in profits are lost each year due to piracy of copyrighted materials over the Internet. These lost profits result from unscrupulous individuals making available through the Internet, either free or for their own profit, copyrighted materials such as music, movies, magazines, software, and pictures. Also, an individual, a company, an organization, or the like may be concerned with other intellectual property violations such as the illegal sale of their products, or the sale of inferior products using their brand namesxe2x80x94that is, patent and trademark infringements. Furthermore, an individual, a company, an organization, or the like may be concerned with false information (i.e., xe2x80x9crumorsxe2x80x9d) that originate and spread quickly over the Internet, resulting in the disparagement of the individual, company, organization, or the like. Such entities may also be interested in gathering data about how they and their products and/or services are perceived on the Internet (i.e., a form of market research).
Individual artists, writers, and other owners of intellectual property are currently forced to search Internet Web sites, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) sites, chat rooms, etc. by visiting over thousands of sites in order to detect piracy or disparagement at offending sites. Such searching is currently done either by hand or using commercial search engines. Each of these methods is costly because a great amount of time is required to do such searchingxe2x80x94time that detracts from positive, profit-earning activities. Adding to the frustration of detecting infringements is the fact that commercial search engines are infrequently updated and typically limit the resulting number of sites (xe2x80x9chitsxe2x80x9d) that a search request returns. Furthermore, the task of visiting each site to determine whether there is indeed an infringement or disparagement and if so, the extent and character of it, also demands a great deal of time.
Therefore, in view of the above, what is needed is a system, method and computer program product for an online (i.e., Internet or intranet) monitoring search engine. Such online monitoring would enhance the ability of intellectual property owners and business owners to detect and prioritize their response to infringements and disparagements. Further, what is needed is a system, method and computer program product that searches the Internet""s Web pages, FTP sites, FSP sites, Usenet newsgroups, chat rooms, etc. for data relevant to the intellectual property and goodwill owned by an entity and produces a detailed, customized report of offending sites.
The present invention is a system, method and computer program product for an online monitoring search engine that satisfies the above-stated needs. The method involves receiving search criteria from a user, where the search criteria reflects the user""s intellectual property infringement or disparagement concerns. Then a search of the Internet (or intranet) is done for uniform resource locators (URL""s) (i.e., addresses) that specify sites which contain contents matching the search criteria. After a list of URL""s containing probable infringements or disparagement is obtained, the pages of each URL are downloaded, archived, and scored. The method also obtains contact information for each registrant of the offending URL""S. The method then produces a report listing the offending URL""s and the score for each of the URL""s. The report may then be utilized by the user to plan intellectual property infringement or disparagement enforcement activities. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, before generating a report, the pages are also grouped into xe2x80x9cactual sitesxe2x80x9d to reduce the magnitude of information contained in the report. The method may also list the highest scoring page for each of the actual sites, as well as the highest ranking actual site.
The online monitoring system of the present invention includes a Web server for receiving search criteria, search setup, and management inputs from users, an intellectual property infringement server (IPIS) for searching the Internet (or any computer network) for URL""s that contain contents matching the search criteria to thereby compile a list of offending URL""s. The system also includes a file system for storing pages from each of the offending URL""s and a relational database for allowing the IPIS to perform queries of the pages in order to produce a report. In a preferred embodiment, the system also includes a plurality of Web clients that provide a graphical user interface (GUI) for users to enter their search criteria, as well as view pages of the offending URL""s by communicating with the Web server.
One advantage of the present invention is that intellectual property owners may quickly and efficiently search and find infringements and disparagements contained on Web, FTP, and FSP sites, as well as chat rooms and Usenet newsgroups within the Internet.
Another advantage of the present invention is that detailed and customizable reports listing offending sites and associated metrics are produced allowing intellectual property owners to focus their enforcement activities.
Another advantage of the present invention is that its back-end (search engine) and front-end (user interface) are designed to operate independently of each other, thus allowing greater throughput and availability of the system as a whole.
Yet another advantage of the present invention is that lists of probable offending URL""s may be grouped and prioritized, both in an automated and manual fashion, in order to arrive at a manageable set of data to focus intellectual property enforcement activities.
Further features and advantages of the invention as well as the structure and operation of various embodiments of the present invention are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.